52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[kashell]

56. Kirby and the Forgotten Land+ Star-Crossed Worlds

I finished what I guess could be considered the main story. The credits rolled, Kirby and his posse lived happily ever after. Etc. Of course, there's still plenty of game left to discover. The game keeps a percentage for completion and I'm currently at 76%. So, I'll be getting the rest of the "endings".

[bikingjahuty]

93. Doom II (PS4)

Unfortunately my family didn't get a PC until 1999. Even more unfortunately, we couldn't afford anything high end or even average, so we ended up getting so budget build my cousin put together. While I was still absolutely stoked to have my own PC to play games on, the reality of the situation was my PC would barely run any contemporary, late 90s games (unless you want to consider playing what looks like a glitchy slide show "running" it). Even games that were several years old didn't run great. In fact, pretty much if a game was newer than 3-years old, there's a good chance my first family computer could barely run it, if at all. A good friend of mine took pity on me around this time and actually gave me a bunch of his old PC games he no longer wanted. There were some real gems in there, but the jewel in the crown of his pity donation to me was Doom II.


Like many games I grew up with, I never actually beat Doom II as a kid, but I guess in a way I did "beat" it with the aid of cheats. Since there, I've never done a legit full playthrough of the entire game, so I decided to do something about that. With Halloween next month, I figured Doom II would also be a good appetizer to prepare me for much more hardcore horror games once October rolls around. Aside from my childhood nostalgia for this game, I've unfortunately come to the realization that Doom II is pretty much inferior to its predecessor in nearly every way. And that's despite the addition of new enemies, bigger levels, and the introduction of the classic of classic FPS weapons, the Super Shotgun. The new enemy types are often cited as a big reason why Doom II is inferior to Doom, however it goes well beyond that. Yes, the Chain Gunners and Archvile's suck ass to fight, but my main gripe personally is the level layout and design of a big chunk of Doom II's levels. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say, a third of Doom II's levels aren't great and some are even kind of terrible. Bigger is not always better, and this is a major variable in which levels are the worst.


These large, often open levels really disrupt the pacing of Doom II's gameplay. They all mostly start off promising enough until you kill everything in sight and are then left to just wander around until you hopefully figure out where to go or where some stupid key is hidden. This is made even more annoying my Doom II requiring some light platforming, which is never great for the most part. Everything just lacks the same intuitive, well planned and thought out structure present in nearly all of its predecessor's levels and unfortunately it really made this game drag at parts. If not for the same crisp, precise, and fast paces shooting gameplay, the over abundance of crappy levels would have really brought this game down further, but in the end I only enjoyed Doom II a little less because of it. And for the record, there are also a lot of really great stages in Doom II as well; I just wanted to throw that out there in case I accidentally gave the impression Doom II was just crappy stage after crappy stage. It certainly isn't.


Other than that, Doom II's visuals are nearly as good as the original's albeit most stages aren't as interesting as the Mars Base or Hell levels in Doom. Nor are the overall production values. I'm assuming this is because Doom II was literally released just a year later and I'm certain ID wanted to get this out while their first game was still the talk of the town (for better or worse). The audio is also great in Doom II, but again, not as good or memorable as it was in the first game. That really is saying a lot since Doom II's OST is a similar set of midi metal tracks like the first game that sound pretty awesome for the most part. Enemy, weapon, and environmental sound effects are mostly the same and unaltered which is how they should be imo.


In many ways, Doom II reminds me a lot of Doom Eternal. I don't mean that in the sense that Doom II's basic premise of Hell attempting to take over earth was the same, but rather both games took the template laid out by their predecessors and tried making it better. Unfortunately all that ended up happening was both games tried doing too much with what was already an excellent formula and just created something that felt more bloated and less refined. And like Doom Eternal, Doom II is still a great game despite this, but in the end, you kind of just wish you were playing the first game instead. (9/4/25) [38/50]

[dhaabi]

56. These Heavenly Bodies || Browser || 09.02.2025



Slowly but surely, I'm still going through a backlog of free itch.io games that caught my attention for one reason or another. There are a fair amount of horror games that I'd like to space out, so I settled on playing through These Heavenly Bodies first.

As a ten-minute experience, These Heavenly Bodies is a horror narrative adventure involving a priest and a scientist who work together to investigate recently-excavated statues shaped in the form of angels. The player assumes the role of the priest, who is a stranger to the discoveries thus far and is only here after being invited. When the player first appears, it's mentioned that during the pre-analysis phase, it was discovered that the statues are build around human bodies or that, somehow, human bodies have been preserved inside. So, over the course of several nights, the pair study their findings which leads to identifying certain anomalies inside which sparkle. What they are exactly is never explicitly told: are they some energy source? Are they angels? Regardless of what these anomalies are, player interactivity is limited to moving from room to room and clicking on these shining irregularities while viewing imaging scans through point-and-click gameplay bound to a single-screen presentation.

Despite the game's limited interactivity, or perhaps because of it, this bite-sized horror experience reads like a short story foremost. To be brief, I found These Heavenly Bodies to be fine for a short writing experiment, though it was a story with both plot progression and its conclusion being expected. But even in spite of my own opinion on the writing itself, the story was difficult to engage with for reasons totally unrelated to the writing itself. Namely, the game's fast-paced, auto-advancing dialogue was not welcoming, and this problem was considerably worsened by the developer's choice of typeface selections. Some characters were far difficult to read and differentiate from others, such as H and M, and certain ones (maybe all of them?) even have alternate forms. So, needless to say, there were several lines of text I simply wasn't able to read through in time. Going back to the story itself, I don't particularly think that it was elevated in any way by utilizing an interactive video game format and instead wonder if this sort of narrative would have been better suited strictly as a written text.

Still, there were some aspects of the game I thought were done well or were an interesting deliberate design choice. First, dialogue is voiced, so to speak, but it's a robot mechanical sound that's comparable to early computers. It's not exactly a design choice that suits the game's tone and atmosphere, but it was certainly jarring at first. Second is that the game's visuals were purposely designed in a low-resolution style; I actually found visuals to be the game's strongest feature and suited a game of this length while also elevating the sense of unnerving.

Ultimately, These Heavenly Bodies is a strange game with a strange atmosphere and strange premise. It's not a game that stood out in any meaningful way for me really, and I do think I'd have much rather just read through a written story instead of playing through an interactive one.

[bikingjahuty]

7. Gradius III (Switch) - ABANDONED

I absolutely fancy myself a SHMUP fan. Having played literally hundreds of SHMUPs in my life, there are many which I have throughly enjoyed, and some which are among the best games I've ever played. Likewise, I've played some absolutely awful shooters in my day as well. The reason I bring this up is because I want to preface what I'm about to say by demonstrating that I'm not a total newb when it comes to the STG genre, and in fact, I'd say I'm pretty good at most SHMUPs if I say so myself. However, after several failed attempts to get into the Gradius series, I am finally admitting to myself this franchise is not for me.


I absolutely enjoy a challenge when it comes to my shooters. If I didn't, I wouldn't even be playing these games. However, the challenge present in every mainline Gradius game I've ever played, is comically hard. Like there is zero balancing or even an attempt to synchronize the game's difficulty with the parameters of the gameplay and its mechanics. In other words, the game very quickly throws so much at you, so quickly, while confining you in a small space, while completely power up marooning your if you die, while making some of your power ups more of a hinderance than something that actually helps you, that this game will brutalize you over and over again, guaranteed. The best SHMUPS I've ever played are intimately aware how their gameplay mechanics and match what is placed before you to accomadate those mechanics. Even pretty hard shooters like Mushihimesama Futari or Ikaruga do this and the game always makes you feel like the challenge you're presented with is one you can reasonably conquer with enough time and practice. Meanwhile, nearly every Gradius game is kicking you continuiously in the ribs while you're already down on the ground and never wants you to get back up. These games want to break your spirit and ensure you're not having any fun, just getting mercilessly kiled over, and over, and over again.


So yeah, I'm officially done with Gradius. If I couldn't get into Gradius Gaiden, Gradius V, or this game, there is no chance I'll like any of the other games. With that said, I am still open to the various Gradius spinoffs. I've played two different Parodius games and these have been far more enjoyable experiences overall for a variety of reasons. But yeah, Konami's flagship SHMUP series can go burn in hell. I'm done. (9/5/25) - ABANDONED

[bikingjahuty]

94. T2: The Arcade Game (Arcade)

Most of my experience with T2: The Arcade Game is the decent Sega Genesis port. Because of limited continues, I was never able to get past the John Connor Truck Stage where he'd constantly get killed, preventing me from progressing. I did run into the arcade game that port was based on many times, but due to not having $300 in quarters at the ready (more on that soon), I never even came close to beating this game there either. For whatever random, strange reason, this morning I really felt like replaying this game the way it was meant to be in the arcade. And well, holy shit, this game is about as unforgiving as they come.


If you respect your hard earned money at all, I never recommend playing T2 on anything, but MAME or a machine set to free play. T2 The Arcade Game is one of the most punishing, greedy arcade games I've ever played. The combination of constantly needing to collect power ups to keep your gun's power level up, the unrelenting wave of enemies and projectiles it throws at you, and some ridiculously annoying parts where you need to protect someone to progress make this game maybe the hardest lightgun game I've ever played. While the game's unforgiving gameplay in general didn't bother me too much, it's the latter aspect of it I mentioned which was by far the thing that made me almost quit this game prematurely.


There are three sections in T2 where you have to protect someone in order to progress. The first time is protecting John Connor in a truck while flying HKs blast away at him. The next time is needing to keeping the T1000 away from the SWAT van that John Connor so happens to be inside. And then finally, the final boss fight against the T1000 has you up against him while, you guessed it, simultaneously needing to protect John freakin Connor again! It is so easy to fail these section, which immediately requires another credit be used. The final boss in particular has you needing to more or less redo an entire level again, albeit it's a fair amount shorter than most other stages in T2. Still, this boss fight is annoying as hell having to replay over and over again just because John couldn't find a better place to run.


Stupidly hard and often frustrating gameplay aside, T2: The Arcade Game uses digitized graphics throughout most of the game. Human character models are digitized actors similar to the classic Mortal Kombat games (the game was developed by many of the same people at Midway after all). While this method of capturing the likeness and movement of actors hasn't really aged all that well, there is still something very aesthetically appealing about it that always triggers nostalgia in me. That's probably because me and many others thought it looked cool to see what appeared to be actual people in our games, even though their animations were fairly robotic and stiff. Aside from the digitized actors, the rendering of T800s, HKs, Wally-style terminator tanks, as well as some of the bosses all look great. Most have limited, but very cool modular damage effects that make the game even more appealing visually. There are also a nice array of levels and stages in this game keeping things fresh. You start out playing through the dystopian future levels before going back to the past where you'll be up against SWAT members in the Cyberdyne building before the final showdown in the foundry. My only gripe with the visuals is the overall lack of enemy variety and how stage elements just repeat as you scroll left to right just shooting everything that moves (mostly).


T2's audio is also impressive in that many of the actors from the movie reprised their roles in the game, albeit in a limited capacity. Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers his robot lines as the titular Terminator character, as do Edward Ferlog as John Connor. Their likeness, as well as the likeness of most other main actors from the movie are also used. It all really adds to the quality of this arcade title and is awesome hearing call outs from Arnie throughout the game. Fun fact, many of the lines used in this game are also used in the T2 Pinball Machine released around the same time. I have to imagine this was done due to Arnold Schwarzenegger's time probably being very expensive. As for T2's soundtrack, it's also pretty good and gives me some massive Mortal Kombat vibes. I actually thought John Tobias may have worked on this game too, which he didn't, but you could have fooled me given how goo some of the songs are in this game.


While T2: The Arcade Game is an insanely difficult mess and one that has no pretense of respecting your wallet, I don't actually hate this game. in fact, I mostly like it still. There's a reason why this game is still thought of highly by retro arcade game enthusiasts, and why many people have an odd soft spot for it. The very high production values it had for the time absolutely had a lot to do with many of us, myself included, forgetting how punishing this game is, but even with the unforgiving gameplay draining our child and adolescent finances, T2 is still a mostly fun throwback title from the early 90s. (9/6/25) [31/50]

[dhaabi]

57. WarioWare: Snapped! || Nintendo DS || 09.04.2025



Looking for something quick to play for some handheld device, I settled on playing WarioWare: Snapped! Before playing, I wasn't aware of anything about the game (or I had forgotten about it) other than the franchise it belongs to, so I knew it wouldn't take long to play through.

Like with other WarioWare games, Snapped! is a collection of fast-paced mini-games, or microgames, with time limits. However, one thing I did not realize at all until I started the game is that it has one major gameplay gimmick: camera controls. Instead of using the system's buttons and directional pad, players themselves become the controller in a way by utilizing the system's camera and, to a far lesser extent, microphone. So, interacting with the game's components is executed by player movement that acts as touching what's on screen without actually touching what's on screen (or the system itself, for that matter.) It's a fun little concept though one that's not novel by any means even at the time of the game's 2008 release. How this mechanic operates is that, before each and every single mini-game, players must position themselves so that they're aligned with an on-screen silhouette to help maintain camera functionality.

At the same time, there is one other important detail I wasn't aware of prior to playing, which is that Snapped is a DSiWare game. So, what this means is that, even when compared to other games in the WarioWare franchise, Snapped! is markedly short. By no means is Snapped! a premium title within the series, and this is especially evident in the amount of content it offers. From the stage select menu screen, there are four sections to choose from, and each section is comprised of five microgames. So, what this means is that there are only twenty microgames to engage in which is disappointing considering that an entire section can be cleared in under one minute. In fact, most of my time playing Snapped! was actually spent configuring silhouette alignment and camera recognition, which I'll discuss further below. What's worse about the content availability is that one of the four sections is strictly a co-op experience. So, those without someone else to play with them won't be able to experience one-quarter of the game. Even after getting someone else to play for a moment, we couldn't even get the system to successfully recognize the two of us at once to even play the final section.

Regarding gameplay and the sense of satisfaction it provides, it is slight and unrewarding. WarioWare is a franchise that's known for its humor, but a fair amount of what's offered isn't particularly interesting, and none of them are presented in a fun way. As previously mentioned, only five microgames are played at succession, and each of them are interrupted by a camera check. Simultaneously, there is little challenge involved in the actual goals to be completed, and there are no fail states—not really, anyway. Once a section is completed, a simple stop-motion photo reel of the player's movements through each of the five microgames is compiled and displayed. It's a small but appreciated reward of sorts that adds some humor the the game. But when players are unable to complete a mini-game in time, these captured images are withheld. So, I suppose that players are really only incentivized to accomplish each microgame so that they're provided low-quality photo captures that sometimes have silly filters over them. And, honestly, the photo captures are probably the game's main attraction despite not even being that amusing. While the games themselves are sub-par, it is a little fun to laugh at how dumb you look while you were playing them.

As far as the game's functionality, is unfortunately isn't that great either. I initially played in a room with lighting and background that I suppose was close enough to my skin tone so did have trouble calibrating the camera, but I eventually got it to work with some consistency. But then I kept having to re-position myself or move to a different location entirely that had better visual clarity for the camera to recognize, but I was still having issues. As mentioned above, players don't actually maintain grasp of the DS handheld while playing, but they instead set it on a flat, still surface. Players must maintain a certain distance away from the camera, but I found myself moving all around while trying to pass silhouette checks. Also, when a silhouette check is failed (which happened often for me), the entire play session closes and resets back to the stage select menu. So, needless to say, there is a lot of setup involved that greatly disrupts the game's flow.

So to my disappointment, WarioWare: Snapped! is a bad game. I try not to be too negative in my thoughts, but that a Nintendo game of this quality was actually published and sold is a bit embarrassing. I can confidently say that I didn't gain any enjoyment during my time playing besides only the most fleeting amount I experienced while looking at photo reels.

[bikingjahuty]

95. Tetris (NES)

Every few years, I find myself somehow getting sucked into Tetris. What was meant to be a 15-20 minute play session before moving onto something else, ends up consuming the rest of my day as I tirelessly try and beat my high scores. For the record, I am far from being a Tetris pro or even being a competitive player. If memory serves me right, my highest score was around 150,000 points, and typically I struggle to break into the six figure range. But regardless of my skill or lack there of, I still really enjoy this classic falling block puzzle game Tetris is pretty much as iconic a game as they come, I'd say surpassing Pong at this point. It's so simple, yet so amazingly addictive as to what you're required to do. Stack blocks, line up a row, and try and prevent the screen filling up. Meanwhile, the speed that the shapes fall increases over time, naturally making things more and more difficult. Getting those coveted 4 row Tetris clears is oh so satisfying, even after the 500th time. Compared to other versions of vanilla Tetris I've played, I enjoy the music quite a bit in the NES version. Other that, I suppose it's an upgrade visually seeing how there is color, but really Tetris is pretty much Tetris no matter which version you go with. I imagine I'll be picking Tetris up again in the not so distant future again, but for now I thought I'd leave a review for one of my favorite versions of this video game classic. (9/6/25) [38/50]

[bikingjahuty]

96. Beast Busters (Arcade)

I spent a lot of time in arcades as a kid in the 90s, however it never ceases to amaze me how many arcade games I come across still that I've never seen or heard of before. Such is the case with 1989's Beast Busters by SNK. It blows me away even more than I was completely oblivious that SNK of all companies made a horror themed lightgun game with some amazing sprite work to boot. Unfortunately those impressive visuals are about all this game has going for it. While lightgun games aren't a bastion of deep, engaging gameplay most of the time, the genre absolutely matured past the just mindlessly shoot shit on the screen phase by around the mid 90s. I would consider giving Beast Busters a pass here for its monotonous, horribly imbalanced, and cheap gameplay, but it's just so bad I can't. Perhaps the worst part of this game is you can actually run out of ammo. Yes, you read that correctly; you can actually run out of ammo in a lightgun game. Luckily there are copious ammo drops throughout the game's seven stages, as well as a variety of exploding weapons like grenades and missiles you can collect as well. Luckily I only ever ran out of ammo once while playing, most likely due to the fact that I'd die well before I ran out.


Unfortunately the audio in this game isn't all that much better than the gameplay. Beast buster's soundtrack sounds more akin to something from the early 80s arcades and not the late 80s. I mean, in 1989 we had games like Final Fight which proved how good arcade game soundtracks could be. And let's not even mention what Sega was producing around this time. So yeah, the fact that Beast Buster's OST just sounds kinda bad an antiquated is fairly inexcusable. Luckily some cool horror themed sound effects from the many enemies you'll be fragging really salvages things in the audio department. Still, this game would have benefited vastly from a better soundtrack and audio quality in general.


From what I've written you might conclude that Beast Busters deserved to become mostly an obscure relic of the dwindling late 80s arcade scene, however as I said earlier, this game's visuals save it from being completely lackluster. The sprite work of enemies, stages, destructible elements, and bosses is to be commended. There is an impressive array of basic enemies in this game, there a very creative looking sub bosses in each stage, and more bosses later on that show of a similar degree of creativity. You aren't just fighting your basic cliche horror villeins here. Instead, you're blasting away creatures and bosses that look like they belong in a metroidvania Castlevania game and not a late 80s lightgun game. Not only that, but it sometimes feels like everything in this game can be destroyed or dismembered. Standard enemies, which are mostly comprised of zombies gloriously explode into several bloody chunks. It's hard to imagine any other game being this violent in 1989 and I'm sure it attracted more than its fair share of teenage gorehounds back in the day. The visuals are just so good in this game and as I said, they salvage what would have otherwise been a somewhat bad arcade lightgun game otherwise.


I am genuinely happy I stumbled upon Beast Busters, especially with spooky season quickly approaching. I wish the gameplay in the game wasn't so poorly designed and just below average, because if it had even been slightly more thought out, I may hold this game in higher regard than several other acclaimed lightgun games I've played in my day. Still, for what it is, Beast Busters is worth at least a single playthrough if you consider yourself a fan of retro lightgun games or just like some fun, over the top horror games to spice up your Halloween festivities. (9/6/25) [29/50]